The trend for unworldly child narrators (Room, Pigeon English, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) is becoming tiresome. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time kicked off this particular iteration of the trope and felt fresh and engaging. Now one begins to suspect that a narrator on the autistic spectrum is little more than an excuse for artless prose. This book takes the genre to a new extreme. Narrated by Budo, the imaginary friend of nine-year-old Max, who has Asperger's, it infuriatingly presses its million pat little emotional detonators so that the reader never forgets the incredible courage of the child locked in his world of awkwardness or the tragedy of all the imaginary friends, doomed to vanish into nothingness as their imaginers grow out of them. Budo fears this non existence, yet such is his devotion to his little guy that he will risk everything to save him from danger – but only if he can summon the help of a motley assortment of other imaginees. This world where Newton's third law of motion no longer holds sway is disturbing – and irritating.